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Difficulty ratings are currently very up in the air. I'm trying to fix them, I promise, but you'll need to bear with some weird stuff for the next few *years (Like needle ratings being overinflated because I'm not updating them).
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Xplayerlol
For: I wanna be the VS BOSS 4
For: I wanna be the VS BOSS 4
Update: As of 5 of december of 2021, I have beaten The Guy without pause strats. I hate it slightly less now, but the ground pound still makes it an annoyingly luck-based boss. My thoughts on The Guy and Remilia/Flandre are outdated (Bosses 3 and 8 still suck), but I won't remake this review for a few months so for now please just keep that in mind.
Well, this was a journey. This is on a completely different league from the previous VS Boss games, both in difficulty and in creativity, but also in cancer concentrations. Just a warning: This is one of the longest reviews I've ever made, partly because I keep rambling about random stuff. There's a short version in the end, if you want the summary only.
Just like the previous VS Boss games, this is a boss rush of sorts. However, this time, there's some platforming to accompany it. Yes, I still consider this a boss rush, despite the platforming. If you've played Spinal Fluid or a similar fangame, you know that the boss (Or the avoidance, in that case) is the main event and the platforming is just there to be there. This game gives off a very similar vibe. There's too little platforming and too many bosses to state otherwise.
The game starts with a tutorial stage that foreshadows some gimmicks that make a cameo in the game. It's rather short, consisting of two saves only, and not much of a tutorial at all.
Once you beat the tutorial, you'll be teleported to the first main hub, where the game really starts. There are four paths you can take. Each one starts with a very short platforming segment. Interestingly enough, these platforming sections hint at the type of boss they lead to. Neat idea, one I certainly appreciated. The bosses are very elaborate, specially when you consider that they are the first bosses in the game. One particularly interesting thing about them is that they all have a "desperation mode" of sorts (It might not be the best term, but I couldn't find a better one and my brain is in a RKS mood, so...), which might be a new attack or an independent hazard they activate when they HP is low. At first glance, I didn't like the idea, because of the whole "Boss getting harder as its HP gets lower" concept, which I consider bad by default because it makes a fight too boring in the beginning and intervenes with practice for the actually difficult parts (If the fight already starts out difficult and the difficulty spike isn't absurdly large, I usually don't mind, though). However, the more I looked into the fights, the more I realized just how well the "desperation mode" fits with some them, possibly forcing you to reshape your strategies as you play, and now I can't bring myself to hate it. It's an ugly concept, but well implemented, creating mixed results. The first boss has a wide range of attacks, which complement each other nicely, so usually if you find a spot where it's easier to dodge one attack, it'll be harder or even impossible to dodge another. The desperation mode further complements these attacks. Finding the best strategy to survive the whole thing is half the fun.
The second boss doesn't quite have as much variety. In fact, it only has one attack, and it's the lamest attack in fangames, but the boss room is so hazardous that the fight actually ends up being somewhat challenging, to the point where the lamest attack in fangame history could kill you. There are two desperation modes, both of which make the stage even more hazardous and the single attack even more dangerous.
The third boss is a huge pile of garbage, no way around it. It looks cancer, then it doesn't, but it really is. Do you like Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright in Kamilia 3? Or rather, do you like the dice gimmick it uses? There's a chance you might answer "yes", but most people I've seen express their opinion say otherwise. This boss uses a similar mechanic, so you might feel like it's going to be just as cancer. Every now and then, the boss will shoot a portal instead of a projectile. This portal sends you to a different area, where you need to do a needle jump in order to get a bullet that can damage the boss. The difference is that you're allowed to choose the jump you perform. There's a counter on the top left of the screen, and each number corresponds to a different jump. Just enter the portal with the right timing, and you won't need to worry about corners in the middle of a boss fight. This concept makes the fight more balanced, while adding one thing the player must keep track of, making the fight more challenging. The concept is pretty good. The problem is that the boss itself is rather boring. It only has one attack (Though it does use two types of projectiles, which makes things slightly more interesting), and the jumps are just as generic, though relatively easy. So yeah, it's lame, but not atrocious. Then desperation mode happens. The attack speeds up and you can't quite choose the jump anymore because the counter speeds up too and you can't afford to look at it anyway because dodging is actually hard now. Every jump is an abomination, some being worse abominations than the others. They aren't the next-gen decacorner, and in reality most wouldn't be a problem for an average needle player in a needle game, but putting them at the end of a long boss fight is a different story. There's also one number that results in an Uhuhu Spike save, rather than a single jump. Depending on your standards, it might be easier, or not. This was actually the first boss I played (and beat) in this game, so my first few hours were spent on crafting a VERY negative review.
Anyway, fourth boss is kind of whatever. It's lame at the beginning, then it turns into a fun underwater barrage (I usually use "barrage" to refer to a swarm of attacks with a healthy amount of RNG. Apparently most people use it in a different context, so I thought I should clarify that). It's fun, but not very interesting, unique or outstanding in any way.
Having a nice read? Sorry. I wanted to review the bosses in detail because they are just so different from each other. Even though they don't look like they are. Feels like I'm reviewing a collab needle game, or something like that.
Anyway, once you beat that boss, you unlock the next super cool thing about this game: The stage transitions. Although the first one is the only interesting one. It unlocks a few paths between the four platforming sections (The ones that lead to the bosses), but you can't cross any of these paths unless you find the right order. It's puzzle-ish-but-not-really, and really doesn't ammount to much when I think about it, but I like how it unites the platforming sections into something larger, as well as the little exploring it requires (There isn't a lot to explore, and you don't need to ram against walls, so it's fine). At the end of that path, you'll find the fifth boss. I actually thought this was the last boss, due to the way it's set up, but it's not even close.
Anyway, the fifth boss is a remake of VS Boss 3's last boss. It's a novelty in comparison to the other four, as it features three different phases. First phase is nothing new, but the gimmick is great anyways (The boss' HP bar is also the floor). Second phase is an infinite jump throwback to previous bosses in the series where the projectiles blend with portions of the background, forcing you to keep track of them as you see them spawn. The concept doesn't look very fun, but it actually is. Or, at least, it's very balanced. Last phase is a joke phase.
Once you beat this boss, you unlock the black-and-white "stage" (Which is funny, because the fifth boss is the black-and-white boss, so usually it would be the other way around). Despite the name, it's just a screen of nothing, and then a transition into rainbow land, where the sixth boss awaits you. Again, I thought the sixth boss would be the last, and again, I was wrong.
The sixth boss feels like a throwback to VS Boss 2's 8th boss. It's just as rainbow-ish, but it doesn't flash once every millisecond in an attempt to blind you. Other than the colors, however, it's completely different. It has two phases. First phase is an incrementally difficult fight where the boss creates tendrils of colorful fruit that spin around the screen, twisting themselves in a weird way. Every few hits, the boss will switch to a new attack, and create a new tendril, up to a total of...about ten? I don't remember. Later attacks are rather difficult, partly because of how little room you are given to dodge. I actually forgot what the second phase is about, so let's leave it as a surprise! To sum it up, there's lots of RNG, and you are chased around by stuff.
I'm surprised I even remember these six bosses, because most of my time was spent in the next portions of the game. Once you beat rainbow cherry, you unlock a hub with four more bosses, three of which are avoidances! Yay! Urgh... They also have a minuscule needle section leading up to them (And when I say minuscule, I really mean it).
Seventh boss (Going by the order the clear screen shows) is a short, very obnoxious Miku avoidance. Remember what I said about hating bosses that start out easy and get ridiculously hard by the end, not giving you a good chance to practice? This is one of those. Cancer aside, it's a pretty interesting concept again: Miku is singing Do-re-mi. Not Do-re-mi-fa-rondo (As Google might tell you), and Miku's version of this song is actually pretty difficult to find for some reason. Anyway, she associates every syllable to an attack, so when she says "do" she uses an attack, when she says "re" she uses another, and so forth, which means that the easy portion of the fight is actually a tutorial where you are taught what attack is associated to what syllable. One of the attacks come out of the ground. The best way of learning this fight is to pause the avoidance and listen to the song, maybe more than once. Even if you can't do that, though, the fight will hammer the timing into you by force, partially because you have to redo the tutorial every time, and by the time you finish the fight chances are you remember the whole song. So even though I still think that this fight is atrocious because of the waiting in the forced "tutorial" portion, I have to admit it does a great job with helping you hammer consistency into your brain.
Eighth boss is a very fast-paced, pretty difficult avoidance. 95% of it is pattern, but the RNG portions are pretty difficult as well. I didn't enjoy anything about this boss, but I don't have any concrete complaints except for the fight feeling a little repetitive, so I'll leave it at that. Hardest part of the game so far, imo.
Ninth boss is a tricky avoidance whose main gimmick is the laser beam the boss shoots from her eyes every now and then. It's billions of times easier than the eighth boss, or even some of the earlier bosses, but the lasers are pretty fast, so it's not exactly free either. My mood was heavily affected by the previous two avoidances, so maybe I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have. It was still kinda fun.
Tenth boss is sort of a joke boss but not really? Also sort of an avoidance but not really? It's hard to describe it. It's...unique, for sure. It's not free, but it is (most likely) the easiest boss in the game.
The transition platforming is very short, but kind of cancer due to a certain jump. It also requires a bit of waiting before every attempt at that jump, so yeah, it's ugly.
Finally, the last area of the game is unlocked. This is the first section of the game with legitimately hard platforming. Again, it's just one screen (And one save) for each side, but it's pretty difficult (About a 60 difficulty, if I were to measure). The platforming is still nothing, however, compared to the bosses that follow.
Left side leads to the eleventh boss. It's a trap area with some lasers. By now, the platforming really has nothing to do with the boss, in case you are wondering, so don't think too much about it. The boss is an infinite jump thingy, and actually consists of two bosses: You fight Remilia and Flandre at the same time. Each one of them has 11 bars of HP (Each bar tanks 5 attacks), and every time they lose a HP bar, they change their attack pattern. In other words, you are essentially fighting a 110 HP boss with invulnerability frames and a few dozens of attacks. But that's not all. There's also a short avoidance section near the end of the fight. There's also an interesting mechanic that stops their HP from remaining more than one bar apart (Not directly, but you don't want to have their HP apart by one or more bars for too long, trust me), which prevents certain exploits. The attacks have varying difficulties, specially because they aren't individual attacks, but combinations of attacks (Two bosses at the same time, remember?). This means that the difficulty is focused on certain points of the fight (Even though the whole fight is difficult to a certain extent). Oddly (And thankfully), many of the harder attacks are in the earlier half of the fight. Worst part is, your fingers and wrists are forbidden from any rest from the moment you start the fight (Pausing in an infinite jump fight is a horrible idea). The length, the lack of difficulty balance between attacks and the natural strain an infinite jump boss puts on the player make this a very atrocious fight.
The right path is a somewhat long needle section with a diamond at the end. It's bad, but doable. The twelfth boss follows. It's The Guy. He happens to have a lot of different attacks, including a thingy that comes out of the ground, but you will eventually learn all of them, and think that everything is fine (Although the long HP bar might be a worry). Then, the first desperation mode happens. Holy markings of some type are placed on the walls, and if your bullets hit these markings, they will heal the boss, instead of damaging it. And they are everywhere, so if you don't hit the boss, you're healing it. In other words, you can't mindlessly mash the shoot button anymore. Just take it very slowly and only shoot when you are certain that it will hit. Thankfully, there's one attack that allows you to land a decent amount of hits (Which still don't amount to a lot, though). Unfortunately, this attack is also the one attack that can very easily wall you in this fight. It makes previous bosses (And other stuff) fall from the ceiling at random speeds, and some of these bosses are really large. The fight is suddenly a lot harder, mainly because the HP bar feels a lot larger now that you must be careful with your shots. Then, the second desperation mode happens. Now, the Guy leaves a trail behind him as he moves. This makes one particular attack much harder, another attack more unpredictable, but more importantly, it confuses the player's sight, making the boss even harder to hit (As the trail kills you, but bullets phase through it). Interesting way of making the fight harder, for sure. Then, the third desperation mode happens, and I feel like I'm playing Happil all of sudden. In this third mode, the game speeds up. Literally. The player moves faster, and the boss moves faster too. So do the attacks. Two, three times faster? I'm not sure. If some attacks were hard to read before, now it's nearly impossible to. And hitting the boss? Naah. Very few attacks allow you to safely land a hit now, so you aren't allowed as many hits per attack as you were before. This phase happens near the end of the fight, but it feels much longer because of how long it takes to land a single clean hit.
Not exactly an spoiler, but it's too long of an explanatory read, so let's leave it under this tag. After reaching this attack a couple times, I was completely hopeless. But I'm getting old, impatient, and my sense of exaggerated "honor" is failing me. I mean, people use key rebinders all the time to jump cancel, or watch avoidance videos on Youtube to learn them, with no hard feelings about themselves. Both are, in a way, using external tools to make their gameplay easier. And it's no wonder. Jump cancelling is REQUIRED in some fangames, after all. I used to avoid the latter, though, because I felt like it was a way of "cheesing" but, more importantly, I wanted my reviews to be based on blind playthroughs. The reason why I'm explaining this now is simple. There's a third type of cheesing in fangames, which needle players use very often. I'm, of course, talking about pause buffering. Unlike the other two, this doesn't make use of an external tool, but it still feels ugly as hell, so I tend to avoid it whenever I can. This is one instance where I couldn't avoid it. Pause buffering is a weird exploit. It wouldn't help with literally any other boss in this game, but it does help here, with the game running at 150 fps (I'm probably exaggerating). So yeah, take the difficulty rating with a grain of salt. In a normal setting, it would be higher, but few people play fangames in a normal setting, so it's fine. Still a better evaluation than the guy next door who didn't play but decided to review anyways.
Long story short, twelfth boss is atrocious because it's an overly long fight that gets ridiculously hard near the end. I found the eleventh boss to be slightly more cancer, but my thoughts on the matter are very suspicious.
Finally, once you beat both bosses, you'll unlock the next transition section. Just take either path, fall in a hole and you'll get to the elevator platform, which takes you to the last boss after a lot of pointless waiting.
The last boss is a chase back to the tutorial stage, and then across the tutorial stage (Or rather, a heavily buffed version of the tutorial stage). Features some decently difficult platforming, namely a relatively hard drop, but it's no Big Kid (Here referring to K2's chase because I don't remember any harder chase boss) and definitely nothing compared to the previous two bosses. It's still a nice idea, though the platforming itself is poorly balanced, focusing its difficulty on very specific spots (Not to mention the long waiting before every attempt).
That was a lot of text for a boss rush game. The short version is: Every boss is difficult, some bosses are harder than others. Last two bosses (not including the actual last) are a nightmare. Third, eleventh and twelfth boss are the worst things I've played this year, and eighth follows closely behind. Even then, there are some really interesting concepts, and some really fun bosses as well. Even the cancer bosses deserve a little praise (Well, some of them do). It might not be worth playing for a clear, but I'd say it's worth at least taking a look at.
[2] Likes
Well, this was a journey. This is on a completely different league from the previous VS Boss games, both in difficulty and in creativity, but also in cancer concentrations. Just a warning: This is one of the longest reviews I've ever made, partly because I keep rambling about random stuff. There's a short version in the end, if you want the summary only.
Just like the previous VS Boss games, this is a boss rush of sorts. However, this time, there's some platforming to accompany it. Yes, I still consider this a boss rush, despite the platforming. If you've played Spinal Fluid or a similar fangame, you know that the boss (Or the avoidance, in that case) is the main event and the platforming is just there to be there. This game gives off a very similar vibe. There's too little platforming and too many bosses to state otherwise.
The game starts with a tutorial stage that foreshadows some gimmicks that make a cameo in the game. It's rather short, consisting of two saves only, and not much of a tutorial at all.
Once you beat the tutorial, you'll be teleported to the first main hub, where the game really starts. There are four paths you can take. Each one starts with a very short platforming segment. Interestingly enough, these platforming sections hint at the type of boss they lead to. Neat idea, one I certainly appreciated. The bosses are very elaborate, specially when you consider that they are the first bosses in the game. One particularly interesting thing about them is that they all have a "desperation mode" of sorts (It might not be the best term, but I couldn't find a better one and my brain is in a RKS mood, so...), which might be a new attack or an independent hazard they activate when they HP is low. At first glance, I didn't like the idea, because of the whole "Boss getting harder as its HP gets lower" concept, which I consider bad by default because it makes a fight too boring in the beginning and intervenes with practice for the actually difficult parts (If the fight already starts out difficult and the difficulty spike isn't absurdly large, I usually don't mind, though). However, the more I looked into the fights, the more I realized just how well the "desperation mode" fits with some them, possibly forcing you to reshape your strategies as you play, and now I can't bring myself to hate it. It's an ugly concept, but well implemented, creating mixed results. The first boss has a wide range of attacks, which complement each other nicely, so usually if you find a spot where it's easier to dodge one attack, it'll be harder or even impossible to dodge another. The desperation mode further complements these attacks. Finding the best strategy to survive the whole thing is half the fun.
The second boss doesn't quite have as much variety. In fact, it only has one attack, and it's the lamest attack in fangames, but the boss room is so hazardous that the fight actually ends up being somewhat challenging, to the point where the lamest attack in fangame history could kill you. There are two desperation modes, both of which make the stage even more hazardous and the single attack even more dangerous.
The third boss is a huge pile of garbage, no way around it. It looks cancer, then it doesn't, but it really is. Do you like Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright in Kamilia 3? Or rather, do you like the dice gimmick it uses? There's a chance you might answer "yes", but most people I've seen express their opinion say otherwise. This boss uses a similar mechanic, so you might feel like it's going to be just as cancer. Every now and then, the boss will shoot a portal instead of a projectile. This portal sends you to a different area, where you need to do a needle jump in order to get a bullet that can damage the boss. The difference is that you're allowed to choose the jump you perform. There's a counter on the top left of the screen, and each number corresponds to a different jump. Just enter the portal with the right timing, and you won't need to worry about corners in the middle of a boss fight. This concept makes the fight more balanced, while adding one thing the player must keep track of, making the fight more challenging. The concept is pretty good. The problem is that the boss itself is rather boring. It only has one attack (Though it does use two types of projectiles, which makes things slightly more interesting), and the jumps are just as generic, though relatively easy. So yeah, it's lame, but not atrocious. Then desperation mode happens. The attack speeds up and you can't quite choose the jump anymore because the counter speeds up too and you can't afford to look at it anyway because dodging is actually hard now. Every jump is an abomination, some being worse abominations than the others. They aren't the next-gen decacorner, and in reality most wouldn't be a problem for an average needle player in a needle game, but putting them at the end of a long boss fight is a different story. There's also one number that results in an Uhuhu Spike save, rather than a single jump. Depending on your standards, it might be easier, or not. This was actually the first boss I played (and beat) in this game, so my first few hours were spent on crafting a VERY negative review.
Anyway, fourth boss is kind of whatever. It's lame at the beginning, then it turns into a fun underwater barrage (I usually use "barrage" to refer to a swarm of attacks with a healthy amount of RNG. Apparently most people use it in a different context, so I thought I should clarify that). It's fun, but not very interesting, unique or outstanding in any way.
Having a nice read? Sorry. I wanted to review the bosses in detail because they are just so different from each other. Even though they don't look like they are. Feels like I'm reviewing a collab needle game, or something like that.
Anyway, once you beat that boss, you unlock the next super cool thing about this game: The stage transitions. Although the first one is the only interesting one. It unlocks a few paths between the four platforming sections (The ones that lead to the bosses), but you can't cross any of these paths unless you find the right order. It's puzzle-ish-but-not-really, and really doesn't ammount to much when I think about it, but I like how it unites the platforming sections into something larger, as well as the little exploring it requires (There isn't a lot to explore, and you don't need to ram against walls, so it's fine). At the end of that path, you'll find the fifth boss. I actually thought this was the last boss, due to the way it's set up, but it's not even close.
Anyway, the fifth boss is a remake of VS Boss 3's last boss. It's a novelty in comparison to the other four, as it features three different phases. First phase is nothing new, but the gimmick is great anyways (The boss' HP bar is also the floor). Second phase is an infinite jump throwback to previous bosses in the series where the projectiles blend with portions of the background, forcing you to keep track of them as you see them spawn. The concept doesn't look very fun, but it actually is. Or, at least, it's very balanced. Last phase is a joke phase.
Once you beat this boss, you unlock the black-and-white "stage" (Which is funny, because the fifth boss is the black-and-white boss, so usually it would be the other way around). Despite the name, it's just a screen of nothing, and then a transition into rainbow land, where the sixth boss awaits you. Again, I thought the sixth boss would be the last, and again, I was wrong.
The sixth boss feels like a throwback to VS Boss 2's 8th boss. It's just as rainbow-ish, but it doesn't flash once every millisecond in an attempt to blind you. Other than the colors, however, it's completely different. It has two phases. First phase is an incrementally difficult fight where the boss creates tendrils of colorful fruit that spin around the screen, twisting themselves in a weird way. Every few hits, the boss will switch to a new attack, and create a new tendril, up to a total of...about ten? I don't remember. Later attacks are rather difficult, partly because of how little room you are given to dodge. I actually forgot what the second phase is about, so let's leave it as a surprise! To sum it up, there's lots of RNG, and you are chased around by stuff.
I'm surprised I even remember these six bosses, because most of my time was spent in the next portions of the game. Once you beat rainbow cherry, you unlock a hub with four more bosses, three of which are avoidances! Yay! Urgh... They also have a minuscule needle section leading up to them (And when I say minuscule, I really mean it).
Seventh boss (Going by the order the clear screen shows) is a short, very obnoxious Miku avoidance. Remember what I said about hating bosses that start out easy and get ridiculously hard by the end, not giving you a good chance to practice? This is one of those. Cancer aside, it's a pretty interesting concept again: Miku is singing Do-re-mi. Not Do-re-mi-fa-rondo (As Google might tell you), and Miku's version of this song is actually pretty difficult to find for some reason. Anyway, she associates every syllable to an attack, so when she says "do" she uses an attack, when she says "re" she uses another, and so forth, which means that the easy portion of the fight is actually a tutorial where you are taught what attack is associated to what syllable. One of the attacks come out of the ground. The best way of learning this fight is to pause the avoidance and listen to the song, maybe more than once. Even if you can't do that, though, the fight will hammer the timing into you by force, partially because you have to redo the tutorial every time, and by the time you finish the fight chances are you remember the whole song. So even though I still think that this fight is atrocious because of the waiting in the forced "tutorial" portion, I have to admit it does a great job with helping you hammer consistency into your brain.
Eighth boss is a very fast-paced, pretty difficult avoidance. 95% of it is pattern, but the RNG portions are pretty difficult as well. I didn't enjoy anything about this boss, but I don't have any concrete complaints except for the fight feeling a little repetitive, so I'll leave it at that. Hardest part of the game so far, imo.
Ninth boss is a tricky avoidance whose main gimmick is the laser beam the boss shoots from her eyes every now and then. It's billions of times easier than the eighth boss, or even some of the earlier bosses, but the lasers are pretty fast, so it's not exactly free either. My mood was heavily affected by the previous two avoidances, so maybe I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have. It was still kinda fun.
Tenth boss is sort of a joke boss but not really? Also sort of an avoidance but not really? It's hard to describe it. It's...unique, for sure. It's not free, but it is (most likely) the easiest boss in the game.
The transition platforming is very short, but kind of cancer due to a certain jump. It also requires a bit of waiting before every attempt at that jump, so yeah, it's ugly.
Finally, the last area of the game is unlocked. This is the first section of the game with legitimately hard platforming. Again, it's just one screen (And one save) for each side, but it's pretty difficult (About a 60 difficulty, if I were to measure). The platforming is still nothing, however, compared to the bosses that follow.
Left side leads to the eleventh boss. It's a trap area with some lasers. By now, the platforming really has nothing to do with the boss, in case you are wondering, so don't think too much about it. The boss is an infinite jump thingy, and actually consists of two bosses: You fight Remilia and Flandre at the same time. Each one of them has 11 bars of HP (Each bar tanks 5 attacks), and every time they lose a HP bar, they change their attack pattern. In other words, you are essentially fighting a 110 HP boss with invulnerability frames and a few dozens of attacks. But that's not all. There's also a short avoidance section near the end of the fight. There's also an interesting mechanic that stops their HP from remaining more than one bar apart (Not directly, but you don't want to have their HP apart by one or more bars for too long, trust me), which prevents certain exploits. The attacks have varying difficulties, specially because they aren't individual attacks, but combinations of attacks (Two bosses at the same time, remember?). This means that the difficulty is focused on certain points of the fight (Even though the whole fight is difficult to a certain extent). Oddly (And thankfully), many of the harder attacks are in the earlier half of the fight. Worst part is, your fingers and wrists are forbidden from any rest from the moment you start the fight (Pausing in an infinite jump fight is a horrible idea). The length, the lack of difficulty balance between attacks and the natural strain an infinite jump boss puts on the player make this a very atrocious fight.
The right path is a somewhat long needle section with a diamond at the end. It's bad, but doable. The twelfth boss follows. It's The Guy. He happens to have a lot of different attacks, including a thingy that comes out of the ground, but you will eventually learn all of them, and think that everything is fine (Although the long HP bar might be a worry). Then, the first desperation mode happens. Holy markings of some type are placed on the walls, and if your bullets hit these markings, they will heal the boss, instead of damaging it. And they are everywhere, so if you don't hit the boss, you're healing it. In other words, you can't mindlessly mash the shoot button anymore. Just take it very slowly and only shoot when you are certain that it will hit. Thankfully, there's one attack that allows you to land a decent amount of hits (Which still don't amount to a lot, though). Unfortunately, this attack is also the one attack that can very easily wall you in this fight. It makes previous bosses (And other stuff) fall from the ceiling at random speeds, and some of these bosses are really large. The fight is suddenly a lot harder, mainly because the HP bar feels a lot larger now that you must be careful with your shots. Then, the second desperation mode happens. Now, the Guy leaves a trail behind him as he moves. This makes one particular attack much harder, another attack more unpredictable, but more importantly, it confuses the player's sight, making the boss even harder to hit (As the trail kills you, but bullets phase through it). Interesting way of making the fight harder, for sure. Then, the third desperation mode happens, and I feel like I'm playing Happil all of sudden. In this third mode, the game speeds up. Literally. The player moves faster, and the boss moves faster too. So do the attacks. Two, three times faster? I'm not sure. If some attacks were hard to read before, now it's nearly impossible to. And hitting the boss? Naah. Very few attacks allow you to safely land a hit now, so you aren't allowed as many hits per attack as you were before. This phase happens near the end of the fight, but it feels much longer because of how long it takes to land a single clean hit.
Not exactly an spoiler, but it's too long of an explanatory read, so let's leave it under this tag. After reaching this attack a couple times, I was completely hopeless. But I'm getting old, impatient, and my sense of exaggerated "honor" is failing me. I mean, people use key rebinders all the time to jump cancel, or watch avoidance videos on Youtube to learn them, with no hard feelings about themselves. Both are, in a way, using external tools to make their gameplay easier. And it's no wonder. Jump cancelling is REQUIRED in some fangames, after all. I used to avoid the latter, though, because I felt like it was a way of "cheesing" but, more importantly, I wanted my reviews to be based on blind playthroughs. The reason why I'm explaining this now is simple. There's a third type of cheesing in fangames, which needle players use very often. I'm, of course, talking about pause buffering. Unlike the other two, this doesn't make use of an external tool, but it still feels ugly as hell, so I tend to avoid it whenever I can. This is one instance where I couldn't avoid it. Pause buffering is a weird exploit. It wouldn't help with literally any other boss in this game, but it does help here, with the game running at 150 fps (I'm probably exaggerating). So yeah, take the difficulty rating with a grain of salt. In a normal setting, it would be higher, but few people play fangames in a normal setting, so it's fine. Still a better evaluation than the guy next door who didn't play but decided to review anyways.
Long story short, twelfth boss is atrocious because it's an overly long fight that gets ridiculously hard near the end. I found the eleventh boss to be slightly more cancer, but my thoughts on the matter are very suspicious.
Finally, once you beat both bosses, you'll unlock the next transition section. Just take either path, fall in a hole and you'll get to the elevator platform, which takes you to the last boss after a lot of pointless waiting.
The last boss is a chase back to the tutorial stage, and then across the tutorial stage (Or rather, a heavily buffed version of the tutorial stage). Features some decently difficult platforming, namely a relatively hard drop, but it's no Big Kid (Here referring to K2's chase because I don't remember any harder chase boss) and definitely nothing compared to the previous two bosses. It's still a nice idea, though the platforming itself is poorly balanced, focusing its difficulty on very specific spots (Not to mention the long waiting before every attempt).
That was a lot of text for a boss rush game. The short version is: Every boss is difficult, some bosses are harder than others. Last two bosses (not including the actual last) are a nightmare. Third, eleventh and twelfth boss are the worst things I've played this year, and eighth follows closely behind. Even then, there are some really interesting concepts, and some really fun bosses as well. Even the cancer bosses deserve a little praise (Well, some of them do). It might not be worth playing for a clear, but I'd say it's worth at least taking a look at.
Rating: 5.4 54
Difficulty: 65 65
Aug 21, 2019
Xplayerlol
For: I wanna be the magician on paper
For: I wanna be the magician on paper
Pretty fun needle-esque trap game. The platforming is mostly focused on precise maneuvering around trigger-heavy sections, sometimes also throwing some gimmicks in to keep things fresh. Traps focus on being obstacles, rather than on being funny, sort of like Rukito's games. It's simplistic, but never feels repetitive, and the fact that the game isn't overly long helps (Thankfully, it's not criminally short either). There's also a pretty fun boss at the end, with a nice variety of interesting attacks (Thought the second attack is kind of cancer, I somehow don't hate it). The visuals and the music are nice, too. The only really bad thing about this game is that the death sound is pretty cancer (It's Guy Gaiden's death sound in a needle-esque game. I don't think it's as bad as the original Guy's death sound, but it's a very close call), so you might end up muting the game at some point.
It's just a really fun game overall. Would recommend.
[1] Like
It's just a really fun game overall. Would recommend.
Rating: 7.6 76
Difficulty: 63 63
Aug 11, 2019
Xplayerlol
For: I wanna love the YU-NO
For: I wanna love the YU-NO
Short beginner avoidance. Features standard attacks, including slow RNG and one pattern that might kill you, but the later half of the game blends those in with some really interesting mechanics that keep the game from being average. Clock, in particular, was pretty good. Production value is pretty good as well, and the music is sweet.
It's a fun way to spend a couple minutes. Would recommend.
It's a fun way to spend a couple minutes. Would recommend.
Tagged as: Avoidance
[1] Like
Rating: 7.1 71
Difficulty: 20 20
Jul 21, 2019
Xplayerlol
For: XIFT
For: XIFT
Rating based on the Holocene Juveniliax version, but with commentary that applies to both versions.
Yes, I know, rating a game based on an old version is definitely not fair, specially when the new version is public and available for everyone. Normally, I would clear the entire game in the new version all over again, but I'm getting too old. Not as in actually old, like I can barely lift my fingers to press "jump", but too old to put this much effort into a game I've already cleared. I'd rather be playing a new fangame. So I did more or less the same thing I did with "I wanna let oneself relax" and played a good chunk of the new version, just enough to make sure my review still applies. When I say "rating based on", I'm talking about the numbers only. Alright? Now let's talk about the game.
This is an amazing needle game. The aesthetics are perfect, and gameplay-wise the needle is pretty good too. Plenty of creative jumps and unique layouts all around. Stages 3 and 4, in particular, were amazing in both regards. However, it does have some issues. The two main issues I found were the nature of some jumps themselves, and the level design overall. Most jumps feel intuitive, and even though they are precise, you just know the inputs you need to get past them. But notice how I said "most". Some jumps only allow a certain sequence of inputs, even though others look just as alright. It feels like I'm playing a L-game (Or Yuki Spike on Frantic). Which isn't actually bad by itself, but makes the second point even worse. The atrocious idea that no one ever called for, but some makers still have for some reason, of placing the hardest jumps at the end of long saves. From the original version to the new version, I feel like both problems were toned down quite a bit, but they still exist. And whenever they are present, you can be certain that the needle related to them is going to be cancer. Last save, for example, seems to remain an unchanged abomination.
Other minor issues exist as well. Namely, floating vines are definitely not the most intuitive fangame mechanic around, and the game doesn't quite give you a chance to get used to them. It just throws them at you and good luck. Besides, invisible touch saves have some drawbacks. Because they're invisible, you don't ever know when can you relax. And if you don't know that, you'll need to stay focused from the beginning to the end, which does not work well with this game's length and trippy visual style. And because they're touch saves, there's the risk of backtracking every now and then. Enhanced by the fact that you don't see the areas you need to avoid should you fall. It's just not a good idea.
[NEW SECTION] I thought I should add a portion about the atmosphere as well. The author says that the game's lack of saves was intended to give off a feeling of anxiety, and many people report that he succeeded. Personally, the only feeling that the lack of saves gave me was that of annoyance. Maybe that's why my experience was worse than many others'. Maybe my brain just missed the point. I just wanted to leave extra feedback noting that the feeling of anxiety this game is renowed for giving off is not ubiquitous. You might not feel it at all and, if you don't, your experience might not be the greatest. I've scrolled down the reviews, I know I'm not the only one either.
I spoke a lot of the negatives, but they only affect a small portion of an otherwise amazing game. However, the small portions they affect do require a higher amount of attempts, so you might spend longer than you'd like to in them. Which is why, I can't give this game as much of a high rating as I wanted to. Still, it's a game I would certainly recommend.
Yes, I know, rating a game based on an old version is definitely not fair, specially when the new version is public and available for everyone. Normally, I would clear the entire game in the new version all over again, but I'm getting too old. Not as in actually old, like I can barely lift my fingers to press "jump", but too old to put this much effort into a game I've already cleared. I'd rather be playing a new fangame. So I did more or less the same thing I did with "I wanna let oneself relax" and played a good chunk of the new version, just enough to make sure my review still applies. When I say "rating based on", I'm talking about the numbers only. Alright? Now let's talk about the game.
This is an amazing needle game. The aesthetics are perfect, and gameplay-wise the needle is pretty good too. Plenty of creative jumps and unique layouts all around. Stages 3 and 4, in particular, were amazing in both regards. However, it does have some issues. The two main issues I found were the nature of some jumps themselves, and the level design overall. Most jumps feel intuitive, and even though they are precise, you just know the inputs you need to get past them. But notice how I said "most". Some jumps only allow a certain sequence of inputs, even though others look just as alright. It feels like I'm playing a L-game (Or Yuki Spike on Frantic). Which isn't actually bad by itself, but makes the second point even worse. The atrocious idea that no one ever called for, but some makers still have for some reason, of placing the hardest jumps at the end of long saves. From the original version to the new version, I feel like both problems were toned down quite a bit, but they still exist. And whenever they are present, you can be certain that the needle related to them is going to be cancer. Last save, for example, seems to remain an unchanged abomination.
Other minor issues exist as well. Namely, floating vines are definitely not the most intuitive fangame mechanic around, and the game doesn't quite give you a chance to get used to them. It just throws them at you and good luck. Besides, invisible touch saves have some drawbacks. Because they're invisible, you don't ever know when can you relax. And if you don't know that, you'll need to stay focused from the beginning to the end, which does not work well with this game's length and trippy visual style. And because they're touch saves, there's the risk of backtracking every now and then. Enhanced by the fact that you don't see the areas you need to avoid should you fall. It's just not a good idea.
[NEW SECTION] I thought I should add a portion about the atmosphere as well. The author says that the game's lack of saves was intended to give off a feeling of anxiety, and many people report that he succeeded. Personally, the only feeling that the lack of saves gave me was that of annoyance. Maybe that's why my experience was worse than many others'. Maybe my brain just missed the point. I just wanted to leave extra feedback noting that the feeling of anxiety this game is renowed for giving off is not ubiquitous. You might not feel it at all and, if you don't, your experience might not be the greatest. I've scrolled down the reviews, I know I'm not the only one either.
I spoke a lot of the negatives, but they only affect a small portion of an otherwise amazing game. However, the small portions they affect do require a higher amount of attempts, so you might spend longer than you'd like to in them. Which is why, I can't give this game as much of a high rating as I wanted to. Still, it's a game I would certainly recommend.
Tagged as: Needle
[2] Likes
Rating: 8.0 80
Difficulty: 65 65
Jul 21, 2019
Xplayerlol
For: I Wanna Get Through Hyades
For: I Wanna Get Through Hyades
Rating based on Stud mode because the difficulty selection screen was too convincing. Lousy ending, though, because I'm too lazy to find out what I need to do to reach the others.
Anyway, this is a space shooter of sorts (Is it? You play as a star, in space, and you shoot stuff sometimes, so I guess...). It consists of multiple stages where the maker throws as much stuff as he can at you, and you have to dodge everything, very similar to an infinite jump avoidance, but with enemies to shoot as well, including bosses (Also no sync to the music whatsoever). It features four different difficulties:
- Baby is a joke difficulty. The game doesn't allow you to move, and there are no obstacles on screen. You are dragged towards the end of every stage (Through walls, even), until something happens? Not really.
- Wimp is the lowest actual difficulty. You have infinite lives, your bullets are really strong and I felt like there are less obstacles but I can't really tell. Bosses might have less health, but I hope they don't, otherwise they'd die before you even realize they are actually fun.
- Stud gives you 25 lives, wimp bullets (The irony) and maybe there are more obstacles? Again, I can't really tell. Bosses have a healthy amount of HP, which is pretty good. The limited lives combined with the long stages put you on the edge and make you feel like you should try a little harder. I'm glad this was the mode I chose to play, even though I'm usually not a fan of limited lives.
- Hero gives you 5 lives, wimp bullets again and bosses have billions of health. It's pretty cancer, but more playable than the difficulty selection screen's description might make you believe.
The visuals are really cool, but the highlight of the game are the musics. Stage 1's music, in particular, always gets me in the mood to play again. You have autofire, so that's cool. But you better realize you have autofire in first place, because if you don't hold down Z you'll be shooting those bosses for weeks. For some reason, even if you mash, you shoot way less bullets than you would with autofire. Weird mechanics. There are achievements, and extra thingies to do (Including a girlfriend the maker just pulled out of his hat because the game never mentions her until the end).
It's a really fun game. Would definitely recommend.
[1] Like
Anyway, this is a space shooter of sorts (Is it? You play as a star, in space, and you shoot stuff sometimes, so I guess...). It consists of multiple stages where the maker throws as much stuff as he can at you, and you have to dodge everything, very similar to an infinite jump avoidance, but with enemies to shoot as well, including bosses (Also no sync to the music whatsoever). It features four different difficulties:
- Baby is a joke difficulty. The game doesn't allow you to move, and there are no obstacles on screen. You are dragged towards the end of every stage (Through walls, even), until something happens? Not really.
- Wimp is the lowest actual difficulty. You have infinite lives, your bullets are really strong and I felt like there are less obstacles but I can't really tell. Bosses might have less health, but I hope they don't, otherwise they'd die before you even realize they are actually fun.
- Stud gives you 25 lives, wimp bullets (The irony) and maybe there are more obstacles? Again, I can't really tell. Bosses have a healthy amount of HP, which is pretty good. The limited lives combined with the long stages put you on the edge and make you feel like you should try a little harder. I'm glad this was the mode I chose to play, even though I'm usually not a fan of limited lives.
- Hero gives you 5 lives, wimp bullets again and bosses have billions of health. It's pretty cancer, but more playable than the difficulty selection screen's description might make you believe.
The visuals are really cool, but the highlight of the game are the musics. Stage 1's music, in particular, always gets me in the mood to play again. You have autofire, so that's cool. But you better realize you have autofire in first place, because if you don't hold down Z you'll be shooting those bosses for weeks. For some reason, even if you mash, you shoot way less bullets than you would with autofire. Weird mechanics. There are achievements, and extra thingies to do (Including a girlfriend the maker just pulled out of his hat because the game never mentions her until the end).
It's a really fun game. Would definitely recommend.
Rating: 9.4 94
Difficulty: 53 53
May 29, 2019
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